Intonation practices

By this, do you mean instruments like the double bass (and just about every other instrument in the orchestra), which can vary their intonation, playing with instruments whose intonation is fixed like pianos and guitars?

-S-

 

"How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)" by Ross W. Duffin has been an invaluable resource for me. Not only is it a good read, but it has seriously altered my concept of intonation

 

@Chris Fitzgerald, I've had this conversation with fellow brass player. (I'm an amateur French Horn and trumpet player.) Every conversation ends up with, "I just try to listen and play in tune." I have yet to hear a strategy or plan. I'll offer that this is what I do, too, just try to play a note that sounds right.

We all bring different things to our playing. In my case, in college I could tell you, out of the blue, whether the A you were playing was 440 or 441. And in my case, I quickly came to realize that listening to pitch with that level of "detail" - for lack of a better word - was the proverbial rabbit hole from which I might never escape if I ventured in, so I try not to do that. I am convinced that not only intonation but all manners of pitch perception are best viewed as language - if you speak the language fluently, then that's that, and what makes sense is largely a matter of well-honed habit, and there are really no absolutes to be had. So, for me, I don't make a conscious differentiation when playing with a piano, I still just "try to play in tune" as best I'm able and what's happening in my brain to make that happen remains something of a mystery I don't really want to solve.

The best drill I'm aware of for making people aware of this sort of "pitch detail" - again, for lack of a better way to describe it - is to have two people, or two groups of people, start a half-step from each other and gradually trade places. Depending on skill level, even just saying "Ok, you people sing Ab, and you people sing G, and when I say switch, you switch" can be difficult to impossible. But if it's not, then you start adding time - switch over the course of a 4 beats at quarter = 60. When you get the hang of it, you hear the beats as the two parts relate to each other in various ways, and it's _way_ cool. But I'm not sure that it really accomplishes anything for me, and I can't say for sure that it actually accomplishes anything for anyone.

For anyone wishing to try this on their own, just put on a drone of some note, and then sing along with it, starting a half-step away and trying to approach the drone pitch gradually.

NB: The people you live with will absolutely hate you for doing this - it's completely annoying to listen to.

Just my opinion.

-S-

 

Did you happen to catch Scott Dixon’s presentation at ISB? He talked a LOT about this and his conclusions and solutions revolved around the ideas that since all the orchestral string instruments share GDA strings, those are the resonances and harmonics we should tune to and that the byproduct of this is that sharps are flat, flats are sharp, and some notes (Ab, C, E, and G#) have different versions of in tune depending on the harmonic context.

I’d love to get into further details, but it’s hard for me to articulate this via text and if you email Scott he could probably send you his PowerPoint and go into much more detail than I can.

 

Big caveat: if you’re playing with piano, guitar, etc. you pretty much have to play using equal temperament since those are fixed-pitch instruments.

 

You have my deepest sympathy - poor intonation because of a tuning system! Last time I looked a unison is a unison is a unison in all tuning system.

FWIW, my 'solution' for people who can't match pitch is singing - I have them sing on the names of the notes.

BTW, FWIW, and all that, my wife and I shared a student for a while, her voice student and my bass student. When she added bass to her studies, her singing intonation improved, so I guess it works both ways.

-S-

 

fascinating stuff!!

 

This article may be of interest to you.

Note: ‘Casals did not believe in modifying to fit the intonation of a piano when playing sonatas. A much more vital partnership exists between the two instruments when the stringed instrument plays as is right for the music, even though this sometimes means that they are playing the same note at different pitches. Importantly, he felt it necessary to tune his A slightly sharp for work with a keyboard.’

 

You may find the book “cello-mind” of interest. It speaks quite a bit on intonation and a systematized way about it. An incredibly useful reference for intonation and technique

 

I found this article to be fascinating:

Double bass intonation: a systematic approach to solo and ensemble playing

Kinda long, but lots of great information and ideas.

 

Yes. It's light-years beyond anything I've given thought to, but I'm going to read and reread that article and start thinking about this.

-S-

 

While I do believe intonation can and should be modified for affect/mood, my personal opinion is that our ears and hands should be attuned to pure and equal tempered intervals because I believe that we should strive for blend and resonance first and foremost; Casals’ expressive intonation can do powerful things to shape a melody, but goes against the harmonic series and nature/physics in terms of the spacing of intervals, of which I believe the latter is of most importance to bass players since we provide harmonic context for the rest of the ensemble. If we’re a soloist I think that we can think more expressively about our intonation, but most of the time we are accompanists trying to make everyone else sound better.

Again, just my thoughts on the matter.

 

All tuning is a compromise. By itself, I can't agree with the above. I think the physics of the thing is important to understand but it is not a reason _not_ to experiment with intonation.

That's a separate discussion. In an ensemble with a keyboard, or even a guitar, I don't know that we can say we provide "harmonic context" nor I do really know what that means.

-S-